


Rising from the Ashes (Blazing Bright)

by zombifixation



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, F/M, M/M, Not Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Compliant, Not Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Compliant, Not Canon Compliant, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-06-06 06:25:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15188759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zombifixation/pseuds/zombifixation
Summary: A series of rebirths through the years.





	Rising from the Ashes (Blazing Bright)

Steve stares at his hands; they look like they belong to a stranger. He’d always had hands too big for his scrawny body, but now? Now they’re even bigger, meatier, they’re no longer just skin and bone, just barely past starved.

Just yesterday, he’d looked at these same hands, shaking with nerves, before stepping into the machine. Now Erskine is dead, killed by a man that Steve couldn’t even apprehend with this stronger body, and his hands, his body, are permanently different. He will never know these hands the way he had before; he will never know this body the way he had before.

Despite all the grace of this new body, Steve feels as unsteady as a newborn deer. He’s taller, bigger in a way he never would have imagined. Everything seems to be from the wrong perspective, one he will never be used to. His head seems to be a magnet, hitting into anything and everything. No room is the right size anymore, and he has to squeeze himself into spaces he fit comfortably before.

 

He’s no longer bigger than Stevie. Why does that sting? He goes off to a war and Steve stays behind to change into something new, something better. Steve didn’t have to be drafted, why was he trying so hard to die?

Well, Steve wasn’t the only one to change, though Bucky’s changes are less...apparent. He can snipe better than anyone in his regiment, even better than he could before. Scratches, bruises, and broken bones heal before he can barely feel them. Whatever those broken German scientists did to him while in the prison camp changed him. He hopes it isn’t true. He doesn’t tell Steve, knowing it would only worry him, and besides, it was over with. What was the harm in being better and stronger?

But then he falls from the train, straight into the arms of HYDRA. He never warms from the ice and snow of Russia and they name him for it: the Winter Soldier. His mind is shiny and clean of all thoughts but the Mission. He’s given an arm just as shiny as his mind, just as much a weapon as the rest of him, only it’s not clean; it’s soaked through with the blood of hundreds. Every time he wakes up it’s to a new year, or a new decade. He’s trained to be the strongest weapon out there, not the strongest person. He’s reborn into the perfect weapon.

His sense of self is torn from him, and there is only one thought that is his own, Will this ever end for me?

 

Tony opens his eyes to the steady beeping of medical equipment. For a second there is only panic in his mind: gotta build, gotta build. The beeping of the machines speeds up with his panic, and he realizes he must be in a hospital, since the Ten Rings didn’t keep much in the way of medical equipment.

Then he remembers escaping the Ten Rings, being found by Rhodey in the desert, falling asleep in the helicopter on the way to the military hospital with Rhodey never leaving his side.

Tony is a new person, not the same man who flew to Afghanistan only three months ago. 

 

Steve woke to the sound of a baseball game he’d seen before. He knew immediately that something wasn’t right, that feeling only increased as the ‘nurse’ entered the room with the wrong clothes, wrong hair, wrong shoes. Everything about her, the room, the game was wrong, wrong, wrong. 

Needing to escape, he burst out of the room into the future.

 

The Battle of New York happens and Pepper can’t take it anymore. She breaks up with Tony with a final kiss and leaves for Malibu. More lonely than ever, Tony starts designing apartments at Stark Tower for the Avengers. He builds entire floors for each one. Bruce gets a science lab, Natasha gets a ballet floor with a secret room to an armory, Clint gets an archery range, Thor gets all the coffee and poptarts he could ever want, and Steve gets a gym. He doesn’t tell anyone about the rooms, save JARVIS, embarrassed to need people, resenting being lonely.

Upon finding out about the floors, Fury orders them to all move into Stark Tower, since there’s ample space anyway. Tony begrudgingly opens his home to the entire team. They are grateful and touched, despite Tony denying creating rooms designed with each person in mind.

 

Living in what was Stark tower, now the Avengers tower, is an adventure in itself. There’s something more than teammates in this group of people; there is family. 

Movie night is every thursday. Steve goes down to draw Tony as he works in his workshop most days. Clint pranks the team and everyone is fairly certain he built a nest in the air ducts somewhere (never mind the fact that Steve is absolutely certain Tony built them large enough for a grown ass man intentionally with Clint in mind). Natasha teaches Tony and Bruce some self-defense. Bruce and Tony work together in the labs to better the equipment for the whole team. Thor isn’t always in the tower--sharing his time between the Avengers, Jane, and Asgard--but when he is, he always makes sure to hug everyone mightily. Steve learns to cook and bake for his team, his new family.

There are team dinners and they go to galas together, and Steve is finally...happy for the first time since waking up in a new century.

He gets teased for mothering the team, but it’s all good natured. He likes to take care of people. His favorite to take care of ends up being Tony to no one’s surprise but Tony’s. With his eating and sleeping habits, Tony is the perfect candidate to be mothered. Steve leaves plates of food, mugs of coffee, and glasses of water in Tony’s workshop to make sure he eats and drinks. He does his best to ensure Tony gets at least 6 hours of sleep a night, even going so far as to physically carry Tony from the workshop to the amusement of JARVIS.

Something begins to grow between Tony and Steve. It begins with Tony’s subconscious flirting and teasing of Cap. At first, Steve is only flustered and blushes, but then he starts to return it with easy affection. 

Then everything grinds to a halt when Bucky returns.

 

The Winter Soldier wakes up in the same apartment he has for two months now. He escaped from HYDRA and has been shadowing the strange man he half remembers: Steve. There are memories that don’t make sense that keep appearing in the back of his mind when he gets a trigger for them; walking around Brooklyn made him remember saving a small skinny punk from a fight, made him remember getting Mr. Lee’s pastries from his wife’s bakery.

Steve is the small punk, but the small punk is long gone, along with the bakery. He remembers being James Bucky Barnes, but Bucky Barnes is gone too. He wants so badly to reach out to Steve, but something is holding him back.

 

When Bucky starts living in the tower, things are a little awkward. Everyone walks on eggshells around him in an effort to not bring out the Winter Soldier, which just makes him more and more tense. Tony is the soul person to not treat Bucky this way. He’s all in Bucky’s face, demanding to look at his (beautiful) arm. Bucky is unbelievably grateful to just be treated like a person, and he begins to spend more and more time in the workshop with Tony and Steve.

Steve is a little jealous at first, until he realizes that Tony doesn’t just want Bucky, he wants them both.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic i've posted. Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.


End file.
